Fort Worth weekly gazette. [volume] (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-04-22
THE BABY.
A Series Of Letters from Marion Har-
land to Those Who Are the Mothers
OF Immortal Beings.
The Baby's Imagination Don't Play
Upon It-Miseries of
misconceptions.
BY MARION HARLAND.

Copyright, 1857, by the Author.
We have said that our children are
born "belieYing all things" Conscience
is graft upon memory. The child is
warned to avoid certain sin, or not to
rcreat an offense, and little by little dis
tinguishes by these helps between good
and evil. Judgment is the fruit of ex-
perience. Imagination is a natural
growth that in early years before baby
has studied perspective threatens to root
out everything else. The infant mind
teens with 'WOnder stories" In his
outlook black shadows impinge directly
| upon radiance, and everything is in the
foreground.
We think and speak of the absolute
! dependence ct our little ones upon us
imagine because they multiply questions
| by question, that they empty heart and
| head into our ears. Whereas, they keep
! more to themselves thar we do. Some
| thing holds back the child from conhding
| to the tenderest Of mothers the opinion
/ he he's formed for himself, the fancy he
| has nursed into gigantic proportions, the
| haunting faGrS that never leave his
| waking thoughts. What is the subtle
motive that keeps him silent throughout
the process Ct reasoning and the pain CT
conviction? word would scatter his
breads, & calm sentence bring balance
and beauty in his world, but he doesn't
give opportunity for either.
Why did not we in those far off, unfOr-
! gotten times When we manufactured our
own hObgoblins, and kept the kew of our
skeleton closets even more jealously than
now; where the darkness was peopled
with awful shapes and solitude, vocal
why did we not give cur worst teFF9rs
voice? Oar nurses frightened US with
tales Of DOGGY and ghost; pointed out
cracks in the ceiling, defining trap doors
through which dreadful creatures had q
way of dropping upon the beds of unres-
sonable and wakeful children. We were
beset behind and before by lions that, like
the beast following Christian in the Valley
of the Shadow of Death, came on with
hollow roaring and at q great padding
pace--yet we never lisped syllable of our
| infantile terrors to human soul.
Shall L ever, l wonder, lose the agony
out of the recollection of the torture l en-
dured in consequence a conversation
held between my father and a neighbor
over their cigars as to the practicability of
! opening the Panama canal? The neigh
held that the consequence of the
"Cut" through the isthmus Che
| spoke as If it were about a DAYS
work for stout Iaborer), would be the
submersion OF the eastern shore lands of
our continent, the sea level of one ocean
being thirty or forty feet higher than the
other. My father listened gravely, and
| before he expressed his opinion in full,
my bedtime came. My nurse was q
nanny of the most induIgent stamp, but
l never thought of telling her why l took
| so long to say my prayers, or why my
teeth Chartered although the night was
mild. When my mother looked into my
room on her way to bed l was wide awake
and surprised her by asking how high my
window was from the ground.
"AbOut fifteen feet" she answered
'My little girl is not foolish enough to
think of robbers, 1 hopper"
l turned my face away with a sleepy
mumur. l could not tell her that | had
listened, hour after hour, for the swash of
the salt tide, yet hoping that we might be
above the crest of the incoming food
that, again and again, deceived by the
rush of the wind in the tree tops, had
jumped out of bed and strained my eyes
into the mOonlighted eastern distance,
mistaking the CLINT of the beams on the
tossing corn fields for the leap Of the
waves. We were $50 miles inland, but
that did not lessen the danger to my aD-
prehension. AS days went by and we
remained high and dry, and there was no
more talk OF suDmeTsiOn, my dread sub
sided as silently as it had been born.
Forty odd years have brought the high
tide on the coast Of Virginia no nearer
than on the night of unspOken horrors.
The seal set on my lips then was the
same that holds back the confession OF
your child's teaTsome fancies, her chimer-
iCal speculations. Children, are more apt
to keep terror than JOY to themselves. 1t
may be that they shrink from clothing in
words what fills their souls with fright,
lest the uttersnce may bind the tear
more securely upon them. Or, language,
as they can command it, is a vehicle TOO
weak to bear the weight of the thing
we only know that they suffer end con-
ceaI; set out in the strength OF gloriOas
anticipations of digging up the pot of
gold ct the end of the rainbow, and uu-
earth-What their elders find there every
day-Heaven help US all!
Papa drops a surly word at byeAkEast
when asked Tor money-of the hard
times and the danger of the poc9-house,
and Robby meditates all the day, and as
far iusO the night as youth will carry his
waking thoughts, upon the feasibility of
getting place as cash-boy il a store that
may, at least, keep mamma and the baby
from starving.
Mamma AYERS to G. visitor in Carry's
| hearing, thai she believes this cold in the